When I create a new mail and click on To: to bring up the list of email addresses in Contacts, I get this message:

"The address list could not be displayed. The contacts folder associated with this address list could not be opened: it may have been moved or deleted, or you do not have permissions. For information on how to remove this folder from the Outlook Address Book, see Microsoft Outlook Help."

It is not so much that I want to remove "this folder" (whatever that refers to). Rather I want to re-connect to the Contacts I already have.

I have another problem though. I was using Office 2000 and it was recently replaced with Office 2003. When the contacts were put into Outlook (I don't know what method was used to do this), the actual e-mails are no longer available. When I either type a person's name into a new message or click on "to" and pick their name from the list, it's just their name, it doesn't link to the address. However I've done a mail merge of all the conact information and the e-mail addresses show up so I know they are in there. When I did the mail merge, the e-mail addresses showed up under the merge field for home address. Does anyone know how I can link the e-mail address so that I can send mail from Outlook? The categories also didn't make the transfer, though that isn't as important.

When I either type a person's name into a new message or click on "to" and pick their name from the list, it's just their name, it doesn't link to the address. However I've done a mail merge of all the conact information and the e-mail addresses show up so I know they are in there.

But the addresses work -- or they don't? After the name is inserted and recognized (press Ctrl+k if necessary), if you double-click it, does it show the expected display name and email address? If so, it's something about the way the display names are set up in the contact record or some setting that is suppressing Outlook's natural tendency to show the email address alongside the name.

Yes, the contacts are visible. However where the e-mail address should be displayed, it's the person's name underlined. The actual e-mail address is not there. The only time I actually see the e-mail address itself is in the merged document, under the home address merge field.

No, we can't send out messages unless we look up the email address and insert it ourselves.each and every time we write a message.

When we made a new contact card for someone and inserted the email address, the card copied everything off the previous card, with the person's name and the word birthday: "john smith's birthday". It's very strange. If I made a card for someone not already in the contact list and insert the e-mail address, then it shows that e-mail address normally.

However where the e-mail address should be displayed, it's the person's name underlined. The actual e-mail address is not there. The only time I actually see the e-mail address itself is in the merged document, under the home address merge field.

If you double-click the underlined name, it shows that the address is also the name? That, and the presence of the email address in an unrelated field, suggests a bad data conversion.

Do you still have your old PST available -- assuming your Contacts were stored locally, not on an Exchange Server? If so, you may be able to easily re-import the data. If you CAN get the PST, we'll have more suggestions. It sounds as though even a month-old backup would be better than what you have now.

We do have the old .pst file and we have an old backup. I've tried importing the latest .pst file and got the same results.

I then tried to put the newest .pst file (by importing) file into my laptop, just to see what I get. I have never used Outlook 2007 that's installed on the laptop. I'm curious to see if the Outlook 2003 program is corrupt or if the info just isn't in the .pst file. I made the .pst files myself (the newest and the old ones) and didn't put any restrictions on them. However when I tried to import the file into the laptop, it always says that I don't have permission to do so. I know there's no password assoc with these files. Am I only able to import the files into the file they were exported from? Is it going from Word 2000/2003 that they were exported from into Word 2007?

We do have the old .pst file and we have an old backup. I've tried importing the latest .pst file and got the same results.

When you start up Outlook 2007, I assume you get an empty Inbox, or new mail from your mail service. We should confirm that it works to that extent.

Next, copy your old PST to a convenient location on your PC. For example, create a new folder named c:\PSTfiles and copy it there. After copying, right-click the file, choose Properties, and ensure that the file is NOT read-only.

Now you can add your old PST as a second data file in Outlook. This will make it easy to drag and drop your old data into the new folders. Actually, you don't have to copy all of it: you can grab what's important and use the old PST as an archive for older or less important stuff.

To add your old PST to Outlook 2007, open File > Open > Outlook Data File, then navigate to and open your old PST.

Note: If you are not already displaying the navigation pane to the left of your Inbox, choose View > Navigation Pane > Normal.

In the Navigation pane, which might say "Mail" at the top, choose "Folder List" from the icons or buttons at the bottom. Click the left-most "-" buttons and you should have at least two top-level items that say "Personal Folders." The first one probably is your next set of folder, and the second (or later) one probably is your old one. If you right-click the second one, and choose Properties for "Personal Folders", then click the Advanced button, you can: (1) Verify the path to the data file, so you know this is the old one, and (2) Change the name in the Folder List to something more useful, such as "Old PST".

From here, you can move items between your two PSTs. If you are completely finished with your old PST, you can right-click its top-level entry in the Folder List and choose Close. It's still there on disk, but Outlook will no longer open it automatically.

Yes, that was a wonderful help. Thank you. I was able to look at all the .pst files.

I had opened the file on my laptop with Office 2007 just to look at it and ensure it works. Now I'd like to open it in Outlook 2003 and that's where I'd like to merge data from the old .pst and the newest one that Outlook is currently using. The old .pst file is from January 2009 so there has been lots of changes. The old file contains both categories and e-mail addresses. The new file contains neither but has uup-to-date data. There's almost 1000 contacts so it's a big job. Also, if the new .pst (that lost the e-mail addresses and categories) is corrupt, is it safe to use? Should I just find the changes in the new one and put it in the old file, then use that. I can't imagine doing that to so many contacts, one at a time.

Now I'd like to open it in Outlook 2003 and that's where I'd like to merge data from the old .pst and the newest one that Outlook is currently using. The old .pst file is from January 2009 so there has been lots of changes. The old file contains both categories and e-mail addresses. The new file contains neither but has uup-to-date data. There's almost 1000 contacts so it's a big job. Also, if the new .pst (that lost the e-mail addresses and categories) is corrupt, is it safe to use? Should I just find the changes in the new one and put it in the old file, then use that.

First, apologies for the confusion about versions. I didn't re-read your initial post when I replied.

If your current data file is corrupted, you might want to create a new one. But what is the nature of the corruption? If the corruption is really just a bad conversion, then I don't think it's a problem.You could try using the "Inbox Repair Tool" ScanPST.exe to fix your current data file. I suggest a test using a copy of the file, just in case the tool makes it worse.

It does seem like a huge job to reconcile the two sets of data, but in addition to the familiar contacts views, you can create a new one that shows when the record was created. It's too much to explain in this message, but I recently replaced my phone and when it synced, it duplicated vast amounts of contacts and appointments. By copying the Phone List view and adding the Created date and Modified date as new columns, I was able to swiftly identify and remove all the newly created records. You may be able to identify "bad" records by adding columns relevant to the conversion problem.